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Ten more yards and I glanced over my shoulder.
The team was swimming also, and behind them the cart
rocked and bobbed like a boat swinging in a heavy
sea. There came a strain on the riem; the leaders
were trying to turn! I pulled hard and encouraged
them with my voice, while Anscombe, who drove splendidly,
kept their heads as straight as he could. Mercifully
they came round again and struck out for the further
shore, the water-logged cart floating after them.
Would it turn over? That was the question in
my mind. Five seconds; ten seconds and it was
still upright. Oh! it was going. No, a
fierce back eddy caught it and set it straight again.
My mare touched bottom and there was hope. It
struggled forward, being swept down the stream all
the time. Now the horses in the cart also found
their footing and we were saved.

No, the wet had caused the knot of one of the riems
to slip beneath the strain, or perhaps it broke—­I
don’t know. Feeling the pull slacken the
leaders whipped round on to the wheelers. There
they all stood in a heap, their heads and part of their
necks above water, while the cart floated behind them
on its side. Kaatje screamed and Anscombe flogged.
I leapt from my mare and struggled to the leaders,
the water up to my chin. Grasping their bits
I managed to keep them from turning further.
But I could do no more and death came very near to
us. Had it not been for some of those brave
Swazis on the bank it would have found us, every one.
But they plunged in, eight of them, holding each
other’s hands, and half-swimming, half-wading,
reached us. They got the horses by the head and
straightened them out, while Anscombe plied his whip.
A dash forward and the wheels were on the bottom
again.

Three minutes later we were safe on the further bank,
which my mare had already reached, where I lay gasping
on my face, ejaculating prayers of thankfulness and
spitting out muddy water.

CHAPTER X

NOMBE

The Swazis, shivering, for all these people hate cold,
and shaking themselves like a dog when he comes to
shore, gathered round, examining me.

“Why!” said one of them, an elderly man
who seemed to be their leader, “this is none
other than Macumazahn, Watcher-by-Night, the old friend
of all us black people. Surely the spirits of
our fathers have been with us who might have risked
our lives to save a Boer or a half-breed.” (The
Swazis, I may explain, did not like the Boers for
reasons they considered sound.)

“Yes,” I said, sitting up, “it is
I, Macumazahn.”

“Then why,” asked the man, “did
you, whom all know to be wise, show yourself to have
suddenly become a fool?” and he pointed to the
raging river.

“And why,” I asked, “do you show
yourself a fool by supposing that I, whom you know
to be none, am a fool? Look across the water
for your answer.”